Defective ReS₂ Triggers High Intrinsic Piezoelectricity for Piezo-Photocatalytic Efficient Sterilization

Rhenium disulfide (ReS₂) is a promising piezoelectric catalyst due to its excellent electron transfer ability and abundant unsaturated sites. The 1T' phase structure leads to the evolution of ReS₂ into a centrosymmetric spatial structure, which restricts its application in piezoelectric catalysis. Herein, we propose a controllable defect engineering strategy to trigger the piezoelectric response of ReS₂. The introduction of vacancy defects disrupts the initial centrosymmetric structure, which breaks the piezoelectric polarization bond and generates piezoelectric properties. By using transmission electron microscopy, we characterized it at the atomic scale and determined that vacancy defects contribute to an excellent piezoelectric property through first-principles calculations. Notably, the piezoelectric coefficient of the catalyst with 40 s-etching (ReS₂@C-40) is 23.07 pm/V, an order of magnitude greater than other transition metal dichalcogenides. It demonstrated the feasibility of optimizing piezoelectric properties by increasing the conformational asymmetry. Based on its remarkable piezoelectric activity, ReS₂@C-40 exhibits highly efficient piezo-photocatalytic synergistic sterilization performance with 99.99% eradication of Escherichia coli and 96.67% of Staphylococcus aureus within 30 min. This pioneering research on the coupling effect of ReS₂ in piezoelectric catalysis and photocatalysis provides ideas for the development of piezo-photocatalysts and efficient water purification technologies.